Sheriff Gillespie Releases Deadly Force Documents
Las Vegas Metro Police Sheriff Doug Gillespie announced Monday, June 4, 2012, that he will release deadly force documents to the public.
Metro Police will start releasing never-before-seen internal deadly force documents to the public whenever there’s a shooting involving an officer, Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Monday.
“I believe the release of these documents will place this process and its outcome in the full light of day without jeopardizing the right to privacy of our officers involved,” Gillespie told reporters at a news conference.
The reports — a response to the public outcry over the last few years for more information concerning officer-involved shootings — are coming out as coroner’s inquests into officer-involved shootings have been stalled because officers are challenging changes to the process they say make the inquests adversarial.
The last coroner’s inquest was in 2010, and 19 police slaying cases await public review.
Gillespie said that within 30 days of findings being released by the district attorney’s office, Metro will release its own two internal documents.
Those are the reports from the Force Investigative Team that details the incident and the administrative review by Metro’s new Office of Internal Oversight.
Metro created the Office of Internal Oversight in February to deal with public accountability issues involving police shootings.
“Additionally, the administrative review will explain what steps have been taken by our agency to hold ourselves accountable,” Gillespie said.
Both reports of each incident will be posted on Metro’s website under the link Force Accountability. Three reports will be released today with others to follow.
“I think everyone will agree that this step adds a level of accountability that our department has never seen before,” he said.
Addressing the use of force with the public is one of Metro’s top priorities, he said.
“We know that whenever one of our officers uses force, the public doesn’t often see all of the elements surrounding that split decision,” he said.
Gillespie said the new procedures are designed to balance an officer’s right to an impartial process with the public’s demand for more information.
He said there has not been a coroner’s inquest in 19 months.
“Although not perfect, the inquest process served as the one venue for the public to hear what happened in deadly use-of-force cases,” he said.
The district attorney’s office has recently begun reviewing the stalled cases and has published a report as to whether the cases are criminal or not, he said.
“I have seen the need for the public to be informed with accurate and thorough information so they can have well-informed opinions,” the sheriff said. “I believe this process accomplishes just that.”
Gillespie said providing the public information about deadly force incidents “is a work in progress” and that the inquest system is not dead.
“The inquest process is still a county ordinance,” he said.
He said that when District Attorney Steve Wolfson releases his information, Metro will release its own information within 30 days, if not earlier.
“The sooner we get this information out, the better off everyone will be — not only the public’s understanding, but the officers involved in the situation as well,” he said.
Gillespie said the release of the documents is not a part of the negotiation process with the police officers’ unions.
However, he said he did “have interactions” with the collective bargaining groups for the unions, with many Metro employees and with community organizations including the local chapters of the ACLU and the NAACP.
Sgt. Kelly McMahill, a member of the new Office of Internal Oversight, said the review documents her office puts on the website includes specific recommendations on training or policy changes that came out of each one of the deadly force incidents.
“It’s a case-by-case basis,” McMahill said. “We do a critical review of each one of these incidents and we look at everything from did the dispatching go correctly in the beginning all the way down to the application of the actual use of force.”
The sheriff said such information in the documents have in the past been released only during the inquest process.
The new procedure “brings light upon these situations that have been on hold for a significant amount of time,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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